International

As Protests continue, half of Iranians say No to Compulsory Veils. February 8, 2018The “Girls of Revolution Street”.
Iranian authorities have arrested 29 people as part of a crack down on protests against the compulsory hijab.
The movement, which has been named “the Girls of Revolution Street”, started after a woman took off her headscarf in central Tehran. (BBC).
Woman Arrested For Removing Hijab in Tehran Refuses to Repent Despite Facing 10 Years in Prison.
Centre for Human Rights in Iran. February the 6th.
Narges Hosseini, who was arrested for protesting against Iran’s compulsory hijab, refused to appear in court to face charges punishable by up to 10 years, including “encouraging immorality or prostitution.”
“Ms. Hosseini did not even appear in court to express remorse for her action. She said she objects to the forced hijab and considers it ... Read More

Pro-independence Agreement on Puigdemont’s Investiture in the Coming Days February 8, 2018JxCat and ERC appear to be close to reaching a final agreement on Puigdemont’s investiture. Elsa Artadi, the JxCat spokeswoman who is leading the negotiations, said this morning, “The negotiations with ERC have progressed significantly. I think we will be able to reach and make public a final agreement on Pugdemont’s investiture tomorrow.”
During the weekend, representatives of ERC and JxCat met several times in Brussels and Barcelona, seeking to reach an agreement. While they agreed that Puigdemont is the only legitimate candidate (as demonstrated by the latest general election) to become president, they showed discrepancies on the legal procedure to make it possible without putting more pro-independence leaders in danger.
During the meeting, JxCat’s representatives said that they are willing to ... Read More

If Sweden is Really Committed to Peace and Stability, Deportations to Afghanistan Must Stop February 8, 2018In 2015, around 35 thousand unaccompanied minors arrived in Sweden, of which more than 23 thousand were from Afghanistan. For many, making it to Sweden represented the ultimate goal, as they had been promised it was the best country on earth for asylum seekers. However, things did not really unfold as expected. Between 2015 and 2016, Europe nearly tripled the number of Afghans who were deported back: from 3,290 to 9,460. From the 13th of December to the 1st of May 2017, 176 rejected Asylum seekers were deported back to Kabul on chartered flights from Sweden, Germany, Austria, Denmark and Finland, according to the IOM (International Organization for Migrations). During the second half of 2017, Sweden stepped up its efforts ... Read More

One million displaced in Ethiopia ethnic fighting: UN February 8, 2018ADDIS ABABA – AFP – Clashes between two of Ethiopia’s largest ethnic groups have forced around one million people to leave their homes, according to a UN report seen by AFP.
Fighting between the Oromo and Somali peoples along the shared border between their two states occurred sporadically through 2017 but the situation intensified in September, leaving hundreds of people dead by a government estimate and displacing scores of others trying to flee the violence.
CONFLICT
Statistics from the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) show that the conflict-related displacement is more widespread than previously known and one of the biggest seen by Ethiopia in recent years.
“Preliminary data from the latest round of the IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix conducted in November 2017 indicates that around ... Read More

The cold war is on again, with Trump’s nuclear policy February 7, 2018Ironically, an Obama-era nuclear agreement with Russia went into full effect Monday. It was aimed, like previous agreements forged by the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, to defuse the possibility of just such a cataclysmic “Great Power” conflict. Under the terms of the New START treaty, as it’s known, both Russia and the United States are committed to deploying no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads. There’s a strict verification regime on both sides, and proponents of the pact say those inspections have built confidence in the otherwise severely strained U.S.-Russia relationship.
Trump’s nuclear policy is taking us back to the Cold War, WP By Ishaan Tharoor February 6 2018 The Trump administration has touted its new nuclear policy, released at the end of last week by the Pentagon, ... Read More

Following Trump’s Tweet About NHS Demo, Hunt Responds Slamming US Healthcare System, Whilst Creating Americanised NHS February 5, 2018
Some stuff you just couldn’t makeup—The Tories appear to be going for some sort of Guinness world record in this field at the moment…..
Following a mass demo on Saturday against the Tory decimation of our NHS, US President, and professional, racist, angry tangerine, Donald Trump, unleashed this tweet:
The Democrats are pushing for Universal HealthCare while thousands of people are marching in the UK because their U system is going broke and not working. Dems want to greatly raise taxes for really bad and non-personal medical care. No thanks!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2018
Trump is clearly using the Tory manufactured NHS crisis as a way to kill the overwhelming support that exists for a “single-payer” NHS style healthcare system ... Read More

Trump’s Nuclear Posture Review makes the world an even more dangerous place February 3, 2018The review neglects to make a compelling case for the necessity of its proposed systems.
Overall, the NPR reflects an outdated and simplistic view of deterrence.
the most significant problem with Trump’s Nuclear Posture Review is the slanted view it holds of the world and the obsolete theory of deterrence and war fighting that it promotes, which is so poorly suited to today’s threats. Rather than working to reduce nuclear dangers, the nation’s nuclear policy now reflects the reasoning of U.S. adversaries and readily follows them into a more dangerous world.
Trump’s Troubling Nuclear Plan, How It Hastens the Rise of a More Dangerous World https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-02-02/trumps-troubling-nuclear-plan, By Adam Mount
Like President Donald Trump, the Pentagon’s new nuclear policy document sees a dark and threatening world. It argues ... Read More

A Handful of Idiots … February 3, 2018
The upcoming mid-term elections in November are drawing all manners of idiots out of the woodwork. We the sensible, we the intelligent, we the humanitarians, we who wish sanity in our government, are going to have our work cut out for us in the next nine months! In a brief visit to one of my ‘go-to’ news aggregators, trying to find something more interesting to write about than Devin Nunes trumped-up memo, I came across the following idiots. Before reading on, I must insist that you be sure you are sitting down and also have a firm grip on your jaw so that it doesn’t drop to the floor, possibly causing physical damage for which you might be inclined to ... Read More

On Black History Month February 2, 2018It is easy to lose sight of many things with all the hoopla that comes out of Washington, D.C. these days. Things that might otherwise be front-page news, are relegated to a paragraph of small print somewhere in the clutter. February is Black History Month in the U.S. and Canada, and it deserves attention, rather than being stuck in a dark corner filled with the smoke left by Washington politics.
The History:
The origins of Black History Month date back to 1926 when Harvard historian Carter G. Woodson declared the second week in February ‘Negro History Week’. February was chosen as it coincided with the birthdates of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
Black History Month was first proposed by black educators and the ... Read More

Protests in Iran are sparked by rising food prices, unemployment and… February 2, 2018“We become slaves the moment we hand the keys to the definition of reality entirely over to someone else, whether it is a business, an economic theory, a political party, the White House, Newsworld or CNN.”
B.W. Powe, Towards a Canada of Light
Everyone should support democratic protests demanding regime changes wherever they occur, and the dictatorial ones should be replaced.
But, what constitutes a dictatorial regime?
It isn’t a surge in prices of basic food and unemployment. If that was the case, over 65% of world governments should be replaced, including the current British government.
The rule of thumb in determining dictatorial regimes is the number of refugees it produces, and that doesn’t seem to be the case with Iran.
Nowadays, every single regime that threatens the value ... Read More